Coaching Session 1 - wtf

I'm trusting the process... but my eyebrows are somewhat raised that I'm getting coaching on leadership and management as well as my career break.   An executive development coach - for me??  I'm not saying that I'm not appreciative, I'm just the least 'executive' person I know unless you mean executive as in goes in for the kill.  Basically it was an hour of hell - I'll come back and she (this coach) is great in that I can't imagine anyone else successfully getting me to do this and I like her.  

Her first question was 'so what do you want to get out of this session' and I wanted to look at ideas on  how to use and enjoy this career break and I felt happy.  Then she asked her second question 'why do you want to have executive coaching?'.  And I explained that I didn't want executive coaching, it was just that my boss who IS an executive who is currently being coached by her gifted me some coaching sessions for my career break.  And she just grinned at me and said 'I know, I coach her too.  And she said to coach you - the real you - and to do as I see fit and gave me free reign.  So I'm asking you why you want executive coaching'.  And I said, I don't want executive coaching, I'm not an executive, I don't even like executive life' and that's where the real hell started.  Because she insisted that at some level I do want executive coaching and there's a conflict here that we need to get to the root of.  Now I hate being rude and this woman seems really bright - and not a pushover - but I was pretty sure she was wrong.  I'm not a leader, or a manager, I never will be so wtf.  And I started crying.  Which is the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me (I swear, this is embarrassing so don't laugh at me - you won't see me for 6 months anyway but don't).  A summary is something like this: 

Her: what you're experiencing is known as triggering. 

Me: I don't need counselling ffs - I'm fine, I just don't know why you think I want executive anything!

Her: People struggle and fight for executive positions - I have a queue of people desperate for executive coaching from me and you're getting gifted it.  Your boss thinks you have qualities of a leader, I have some background on you from her and I can see some too, and your crying is clearly uncharacteristic so something about this is hurting you hence why I think you want executive coaching. 

Me: You're kidding me.  I can't be an executive!  I'm the opposite of an executive, I hate (with lovely exceptions obviously) executive corporate culture, leadership and management are just mechanisms for people who like hurting people or using people to get more money, more status and more removed from people they see as inferior.  It disgusts me and I don't want to.  Anyway, I'm crap with money and tried running my own company once and it was a disaster.   I almost went broke between unpaid invoices, people taking the mick because I am how I am and the bourgeoisie don't like it, and I even ended up having to fight about stuff legally and I've just NEVER seen anything good about management and leadership.  Ever.  I've had people promoted on the back of my work, I've been overlooked because someone else was more attractive, I've lost jobs because a boss blamed me for something they did, I've bee unpaid, overlooked, talked down to by people with an IQ half of mine and had people just qualified promoted over me because they look 'right'.  I even preferred working evenings part time in a shop just so I didn't have to deal with this bullshit.  Are you kidding me?  Of course I don't want to be coached as an executive - the thought of being executive is abhorrent.  Noone thinks I'm worth it, I'm just one of those people who fits in when they're useful and I've been bloody lucky finding people who just accept me as I am that I feel I can trust.  No, I do not want executive coaching.  

Her: So you've been hurt by executive culture, you feel let down, you mistrust it. 

Me: yes, and my credit rating is bad anyway because I won't use credit ever again and I bank only with ethical banks, I don't have a mortgage and I've moved hundreds of times and my ex partner and I made a mess financially and I don't even value money very highly.  I've got no family to really bother fighting for the Aspidistra for either - I've finally got the freedom for six months to walk away from this and you want to bring that pain back?  Are you actually mad?  You honestly think I want to train up in how to do that to other people?   There's plenty of 20-somethings willing to instagram themselves to death to get executive power, leave me out of it. I'm exhausted from failing and fighting and I'm past caring about money or fighting for anything so leave that out of it.  I wanted a bloody break from the shame of it all. 

I just feel worse.  We covered me having to walk into work and feel shit because I have no place but they're good people, shame that I don't fit in but am liked, I just felt it was a setup.  Finally my boss is just getting an executive coach to tell me to fuck off quietly and gently. 

Her: No they're not.  They have no idea you feel like this.   What I coach your boss and others isn't what I coach you, but I can tell you for certain sure you are at a crux and this career break is a good idea.  I'm your coach, and yes you are not my typical executive coaching client, but so what?  I'm a professional, and believe it or not I think you and I could be good for one another. I'm going to do a bit more research and recover some materials I have - yes lifestyle is a big thing, development is a big thing, individuality and autonomy are big themes for you I think.  Maybe there's something to learn for typical executives in that too?  While they may not want it anyway, they don't have your freedom of expression nor freedom of movement nor access to people and environments that you do.  I emphasise, I'm a coach... I coach people who lead and who have authority over something.  You lead your own life and you had enough authority to negotiate a career break with autonomy.  I don't need to pacify or justify, and I'm pretty sure that yes, it's the case you couldn't afford me if it wasn't getting gifted.  I'm worth what they pay me, so use me. 

 On agreement, since I will probably be copying and pasting our exercises on here anyway, I'll put a link somewhere to who is coaching me.  She said it was fine to screenshot/post my completed material with her on here if I wanted.  

Well, there's the thing.  Now all of you back at work will read this and think hmmm and I clarify right now much as I'm behind this whole mental health thing, this isn't a mental health thing.  I don't need a banner saying #mentalhealthmatters or #weunderstand.  I am fine, other things are not fine.  I want my career break and I want calm and balance.  I'm pissed off I got upset but I filled in the coaching thing she sent anyway and we will do a combination of in person and worksheety/emaily stuff.  I am genuinely sorry if anyone thinks I don't like them.  I do, I just need a break.   I am not a rose-tinted glasses person, I just like dark tinted glasses that remove and filter the problem - I loathe crying and am ashamed I did it.  Urgh.  On the plus side I do feel better that she's a resource.  I'm just not used to having a resource that talks back, pushes back questions but isn't someone I have to tell what to do either who is very competent in their own field and is equally autonomous.  

I was considering not writing this up because it's a bit personal, but I guess if you want the career break coaching to feed you, you've got to feed it something too (that's a Brecht reference in case you comfortably employed people didn't realise 😂😘). I'm still missing the office and you guys to be honest.  Perhaps I cried just because I'm sad I'm not with you and your messages are helping a lot.  Please don't hate me if I say anything stupid in my blog.  I can always delete it!   Anyway, you guys know me anyway.   On a happier note, I got a new ear stretcher from Tribalik. You'll love it - will photo when it arrives.  My mother is terrified I'll end up with earlobes stretched to my nipples.  I'm looking forward to the day I can rest my feet in them. 

I just realised I don't have a printer at home 💘so I'll sketch it up and post this worksheet on the graphics tablet with my scraggly writing - sorry. 

I was curious (particularly when I looked up the rates) about why on Earth was investing this much in me when I was on a career break: I get that my salary is being saved since I'm only on a minimal retaining (very minimal) amount.  Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. Perhaps there's a tax perk or something behind it or I am being massaged out?  Though I can't imagine so from what I know. 

I think the coach must have revised her normal questions somewhat, which I guess is what a good coach must do.  This is a weird new world to me.  I'm still suspicious to be honest and I can't imagine anyone else being best pleased I'm getting special perks particularly when I'm not even working.  I guess I'm also scared that I feel I will 'owe' the company something back - a sort of pact with an unknown devil type thing.  I checked with the boss and was told I was being overly paranoid and it wasn't actually that much money being spent on me in big terms and I'm right, some of it is what would be paid to me if I was working and that they have hopes it's an investment no matter what and told me to go and enjoy or at least get something out of it and they're not bribing me. 

I'm not litigious (especially not against people I like and I'm not organised enough anyway) but I'm glad at least I got that in writing. And I've never really looked at my boss and thought you're a champion reverse psychology manipulator.  

Then the list from the Coach arrived: she's a champion at digging out my bone marrow it seems. Is she psychic?  (ps I had to convert pdf to jpg but hopefully it'll sit legibly here).  

We had another chat and we talked over the idea of business simulations she'd used before and instantly my gut dropped.  We discussed that too.  The following list of my trigger words must surely look hilarious in the idea of being coached as an executive:  business makes me feel ill, corporate learning makes me feel sick and groan, innovation makes my lip curl with disdain, rewards and penalties makes want to puke, teamwork makes me feel greasy, engagement enhancement makes me snarl and competition makes my guts heave and makes me want to run away. 

Coach: is this part of the reason you want a career break?  Because you feel physically ill having to discuss these things? 

Me: I guess so, I just don't want this anymore.  I've been here, seen this a million times, and it's still just shitty people finding more inventive terms for manipulating people and getting themselves comfortable at other people's expense and lioning around for underlings and followers to legitimise themselves.  I absolutely loathe this, I'm sorry. 

Coach: that's fine.  I know that your personal goal is to use this coaching to optimise your career break.  To be honest from what I see, I honestly think you are trying to break with having any career or business - and that's okay.  We have six months and I don't have an agenda other than to optimise your pathway.  I'm not a touchy-feely kind of personality as a coach, which is why I coach specific people I get on with and I'm surprised I can coach you but I think I can.  I'm not a life coach, I'm an executive coach, but I do see quite a lot of executive traits in you.  You seem surprised. 

Me: of course I'm surprised. I just can't see it.  I can't do or stand by any of these things and I already doubt myself at work and I'm not willing to change myself and what I do and what I believe in.  I like my job but really I just stay because it's enough money, it's just enough status to get people off my back, and I like the people I work because they stop me being lonely in the day and keep my mind off things.  I cannot see a career any more, I just want to be comfortable enough, safe enough and hide because I'm done with it all.  That's not executive.  I wasn't happy working in a shop either, but at least there was no strain.  I'd already hit rock bottom - an invisible nobody who was friendly enough and I went in and went out and there was no expectation.  Even there, there's always someone marking you out for being replaced or bitched at about something.  I don't have savings really, and even if I did and went off grid it's just a tomb in waiting isn't it.  I'm just irrelevant, I have no power, I don't really want power, I just want to be scary enough that I don't get attacked. I mean... leader boards.  It's just disgusting.  I can't even just retire to a rural area because they're filled with bloody people who are corporate all trying to organise other people too because they're leaders (I should know, I come from one) who just navigate the sticks to find some poor unexpecting perfectly okay community that needs them to fix it.  The whole thing is just naff. 

Coach: Let's look at your career break then.  Let's assume - as a lot of coaching literature at heart does - that everyone executive or not wants to feel better within themselves.  Does that ring true for you? 

Me: if you asked me if a miracle could happen then yes, I want to feel safe, fulfilled and have something to offer and to be free of suffering and uncontrollable anxiety and fear yes.  But I won't do that by buying into a system that instils suffering, anxiety, fear and rewards and punishments on other people just to make the people who buy into it feel better. 

Coach: you're very passionate about workplaces and work and career being a difficult place for a lot of people, yourself included.  As an exercise, just an exercise, let's have a look at a business simulation.  Normally that would, yes, include all the off-the-shelf business models and approaches and economics I normally use, so let's try a different one.  Would you be willing, if I were to at some point write it up, to be the guinea pig? 

Me: yeah, I'm fine with that.  

Coach: I've not done this before so it's new to me too, so let's have a look. I want to put you in a leadership role. 

Me: no. 

Coach: yes. 

Me: no, I don't want to be in a leadership role. 

Coach: But you are going to be in one and we will adapt that simulation until we find what a leadership role you're comfortable in looks like. 

Me: Why?  There's plenty of people who LOVE being leaders. You can't crowbar them off the seat of power. 

Coach: You don't have to be that sort of leader.  We don't know what sort of leader you are, but myself and your boss agree you are one, and you need some executive power in your life.  It's something in you and it needs expression and I personally think you are holding it back because you can't find a suitable outlet.  Which is fine.  Maybe your workplace, your career, any normal place ISN'T your ideal.  You have six months to find out what IS.  Not everyone, as you say, wants to be a leader nor appreciates having one nor especially an executive leader.  But there are far more unusual styles of leader that we can explore.  

Me: I will let people down, I don't want responsibility, I like being looked after myself sometimes.  I'm not a leader. 

Coach: we have six months.  We don't have to solve this now.  We don't have to accept the current definitions of career, leadership, job, income, we don't have to accept anything.  That's the point of simulating and adapting - we can play make-believe for six months and you won't have lost anything but you will have gained an idea of what makes you fulfilled and happy and what your role is.  A leader can be someone who breaks through a pathway for others just by being themselves.  I'm not fond of the overly trite coaching and support memes that go around for this kind of approach, but there's a modicum of truth to them. 

Me: Is this because work think I'm a problem?  I know I can be problematic, I've been problematic in the past. 

Coach: leaders don't take well to following.  That isn't problematic and what if you're perfectly fine and okay at your job and that's not the point.  I'm here to learn about you and use my skill to coach you specifically.  Yes, it's special treatment.  Maybe you don't deserve it. Maybe you'll chuck it all in the bin after six months, so suck it up and just run with it for six months. You're harming nobody, you're taking no risks, there's noone real here, at the end of six months you have a safety net and can go back to normal.  This may be a total waste of our time but we're both making money out of it, and I can see some potential in it.  Potential isn't actual so hey ho.   We have 30 more minutes in this chat.  What next. 

Me: Can we call it a productivity simulation rather than business?  I want to 'do' something with this six months that's true and I guess have some change and tangibles to show for it.  

Coach: sure, I'm not a lifestyle coach, but lifestyle comes into executive coaching.  

Me: I still think this executive thing is wrong. I hate this feeling of manipulation when I see 'stakeholder' and 'manage'.  I don't want to 'manage' people because it's about manipulating people and I find it repugnant. Separating stakeholders into senior and junior and opponents and planning and engaging segments.  I've seen this all and read it all and I loathe it all.  It's underhand and it's just power play and seeing people as things and categories.  It's repulsive. 

Coach: okay, let's start simple.  We work on a total fantasy.  Let's change leader to founder and guinea pig.  A new way of working. 

Me: well it's impossible enough be fun.  I like that it's total fantasy and carries no risk cos it won't happen and I won't have to do it. 

Coach: Great!  Finally I think we have something... you said you wanted to be productive and you were worried about accomplishing nothing with these six months you've been given so... we can gamify it. 

Me: I knew you were going to say that, you know how offensive that is to actual people who love games right?  They absolutely hate you conniving jumped up people coming in and taking something they're passionate about just to get corporate jackasses something to talk about on their blogs. 

Coach: true.  I'm not a corporate jackass though, I'm an independent consultant who does as they see fit.  I don't have any staff.  I get paid to do what I excel at and handpick.  

Me: I envy you.  I know a few people I think YES, YOU'RE GREAT, I KNOW YOU HAVE SOMETHING!!! who everyone else writes off or just uses.  I can't afford nor have the mind nor contacts to help them, I just like hanging out with them though. I'm broken enough myself - they don't need my help or advice, I just like being with them.  I hate myself when I think 'oh I could make something out/of you' about them - I give myself a kick in the shins and tell myself to buck up.  I'm not good enough to do any of that.  I feel teamed up with some of them somehow I guess. 

Coach: that's interesting!  Community and your colleagues really matter to you? 

Me: Yes, totally.  My 'group'/tribe matters more than anything to me, but I find it difficult and too much pressure to 'be' anything.  And I don't have money or status to do anything anyway.  I'm already stressed out because my company attempts have been a total and utter mess, a mess I'm still digging myself out of. 

Coach: so you're mid failure.  That's fine. 

Me: It's not fine if I get in a lot of trouble. 

Coach: You'll get yourself out of it.  Ten minutes left. 

Me: I still don't really know what to do - what do you want me to do?  I wanted a plan for what I was going to do with this six month career break. 

Coach: okay, well I'm an executive coach, so you're an executive taking a six month career break. You want something to show for it in some way at the end of it.  That's what we're doing. 

Me: what if I don't have any money to show for it or status to show for it at the end?  I mean, that's the likelihood - I won't have any money or status at the end of it. 

Coach: you told me that doesn't matter because you're not an executive nor a corporate rat. 

Me: true, but I don't want to be broke and fall even further behind either.  And I'm lonely!  I miss being part of things. 

Coach: okay, let's work on that then. Let's say a new startup is in the offing.  They've invited you on board because you know roughly 100% more than them which may not be much but is an improvement.  You're seeing where it goes. 

Me: I don't know anything and I don't have any money and I don't know what I can offer. 

Coach: you have time and you know the role you want and you know the lifestyle you want don't you? 

Me: I'm shit with money and have awful credit and can't get any funding. 

Coach: can they and can you negotiate a deal where you get a role no matter what? 

Me: probably but it's a nightmare.  

Coach: but you feel there's potential in it?  If you publish or hide in it somewhere? 

Me: maybe but I don't want to get any hopes up or rely on it. 

Coach: well, that's a good start then!

Me: you're kidding.  what's good about that? 

Coach: it may not look like much but you're willing to put some time and energy in without putting in money or your identity.  You've nothing to lose. 

Me: I'll lose because noone will want it and the competition is too fierce and I hate it.  I'll just look stupid. 

Coach: now we're getting closer.  You won't try because you know you'll lose.  

Me: yes of course. I always lose or fuck up or give up - that's what I do.  I just crumble when stuff gets out of my depth and I don't know anything and I'm not putting what I do up. 

Coach; this is all interesting self-reflection.  I'll post you some exercises this evening. 

And that was it.  

I feel awful.  I don't want to try.